Don’t worry about money, worry about your health. Form the habits now, and stick with them.

Everyone will tell you that, and you’ll just ignore them, we all know it. But, we feel like we should say it anyway.

It’s really fucking important. Far more important than money.

Don’t assume the future will be better than the past

401k now.

Just do all the crazy shit. You live only once and soon your back will ache every day.

Daily intermittent fasting is a great way to save on your food and toilet paper expenditure.

If you can afford a house, try as hard as you can not to buy a house that you can barely afford with a 30yr mortgage. Limit yourself to a house where you can afford it with a 15yr mortgage. I did that in my 30s and now in my 40s I don’t have a mortgage anymore. Obviously with the current housing market this advice won’t help many.

To those people, I’d say: stop using a basic savings account. Get a High Yield Savings Account. They pay 3.5-4% interest at the moment. Zero risk, and you can even havd a card attached to it for spending. They’re liquid. Got 1k sitting in savings? That’s $35/yr free money you’re missing out on. 10k? $350/yr. Best part? When inflation starts going crazy and the fed increases interest rates to control it, your money starts making even more money. Not enough to fix everything, but it does help a little.

If you can, max out your 401k. Put money in a Roth IRA too.

If you want to play with stocks safely use index funds. Something like SPY for the S&P500. 98% of day traders lose money. Every trade someone makes is measured against the market. The trade you made increased 2% in the last week? Well, the market was up 2.8%. It’s like gambling and the market is the house. The market eventually always wins and everyone else loses.

Get in the habit of wearing a backbrace. When you move something heavy, when you work in the yard, whenever you need to bend or twist a lot. Backbrace.

No matter what the situation, you’re not financially behind yet, but if nothing changes in 10 years, you will be.

Save and invest. If you don’t have at least $200k net worth by the time you’re 40, you’re probably never going to retire.

At least contribute to your 401k to get the full match from your employer if offered. More if you can afford it. Time in the market is huge. Make a budget, have emergency savings. There’s little point in investing if an emergency happens and you have to withdraw your retirement at a potential loss, and that’s before penalties and tax. Take care of your body, especially joints. Be even a little bit active regularly. Figure out a decently healthy diet. These will help prevent health issues which can be expensive. Plus you might look better and feel better too.

All of this sound like too much? Pick one or two and try doing them consistently even if it’s half assed. Half assing something consistently for a long time is much, much better than putting in a ton of effort, burning out, and returning to old patterns. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Sorry I know that kinda veered into fitness but I see a lot of parallels in personal finance and fitness/nutrition. Both involve budgets and benefit from a plan and spreadsheets.

Lose fat and build muscle. You will be more financially stable when you’re healthy.

Cheap used EVs are great, but if you are still in college, you don’t need that much range, so a beater leaf is even cheaper.

Your refusal to go into credit card debt in your 20s was great. Continue not fucking doing that.

Denying every indulgence makes you explode in spending desperation once you eventually get a windfall. Instead, ration indulgences, don’t forbid them. Get familiar with “this was expensive. I shouldn’t do that often.” It will make resisting temptation much easier with the new shiney XL+909T comes out when you’re older.

lol don’t ask us. we’re just as fucked as you. :\

I’m over 50 so apparently I don’t count. But if I did I would say maximize salary. Live below your means. Invest because compound interest is your biggest ally.

Learn to cook & meal-prep. Invest time into your health and fitness. Self-host as many techy services as you can (bonus points for Arr stack - streaming services are expensive). Try to “BIFL” where possible - Terry Pratchett said it best:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Just save your money as much as you can, dont suffer but live in the studio until you’re ready to buy a house. The car and the two bedroom and all that shit just keeps you perpetually a decade away from buying a home.